Make Better Hires (great story)
Creative Thinking vs. Job Skills
OK, so I am stealing a story I read about 15 years ago in an airline magazine.
If anyone out there recognizes it and can help me attribute this please let me know!
Solve this problem…
Here is the story. This was a science class and there was a homework problem which was the following:
If you needed to find out the height of a tall building using only a barometer, how would you do it?
The “correct” answer involved measuring the air pressure at the top of the building and on the ground, and using the difference in air pressure to calculate the height of the building. Kids that used that approach and got the math right were marked correct and given full credit.
But there were two other answers that stood out to me, that the teacher marked wrong, with no credit.
I would have marked these correct and given these two students a job!
The first “wrong” answer:
One student said he would take the barometer to the top of the building, drop it off, count how many seconds it takes to hit the ground, and calculate the height based on the time of the fall.
This is probably at least as accurate an answer as using the air pressure based approach.
The second “wrong” answer – even better!
This student said, I would find the general manager of the building and say to him. “If you tell me how tall this building is, I will give you this barometer.” – Fantastic!
Not only did this solution meet the requirements of solving the problem, it was likely to give a far more accurate answer than the correct answer based on air pressure!
What a shame these two students were marked wrong. These are precisely the kind of creative thinking skills that help people solve important problems when the by-the-book way does not work.
Be careful what you ask for
I have made many hiring mistakes by looking for job skillls — by keeping my interview only to the spec of what needed to be done by the person in the next 6-12 months.
People would come in with very impressive experience and just the right skills to do the job that needed to be done right now. These hires are so tempting because you can see how they will immediately take some pain away.
But, what about when the job changes?
But more often than not, when the world changes around them, they get stuck. They don’t adapt easily. They need to find another job that matches their skills vs. being able to step up to do the new job that needs to be done.
Hire Fast Learners
The most valuable hires are the ones that can do the job today, but also can learn and adapt.
You are far more likely to hire a star if you ask questions that get at how the person thinks, and hire creative thinkers that are fast learners.
In your interview process you need to try and assess how much potential the person has to learn, and judge how fast they will grow. People with the most room for growth and the most acceleration (smarts and ambition) are your best hires.
This approach is valuable from hiring summer interns, to top executives. I have used it at every level, once I learned that sticking to the job spec doesn’t work very well.
See also Leading a High Performing Team.
Some approaches…
1. Puzzles: Actually give someone a puzzle to solve. Some people will get annoyed and refuse to engage, some will give up very quickly, and others will visibly start thinking and working it out. They will tell you how they are thinking about approaching the problem. They will ask you more questions about it.
Hire the person who is doing something with the problem.
2. Stories: Ask for stories about how the world was different when they first got into a job compared to how it is now. What did they think needed to be done? What new ideas did they come up with? What changes did they drive? If they just did the job as-is for a few years, and did not grow the responsibility or usefulness of their role, they are not a top hire.
3. Actual Problems: Tell them a situation that you are facing that needs a solution. Ask them to talk through how they would approach it. The ones that say, I don’t know yet, I’d need to get into the job first, are not your top people. The ones that ask a bunch more questions and say, of course I’d need to listen and learn more, but from what I know right now this is what I think… and start offering insights, have stronger creative thinking skills.
Your ideas?
If you have used some great questions, puzzles, problems or other approaches to learn more about your candidates creative thinking, and learning skills, and are willing to share them with us, please leave a comment.
July 14th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Hi Patty,
I think you hit the crucial points very well. What I found useful in the past is to get people into simulation-type situations, where they have to react to the issues and conflicts that arise.
I just attended a nice leadership event, which had these types of simulations throughpout the agenda, following a story: a sailing trip to Alaska shooting pictures for creating this simulation experience. Now, a lot of things happen on the way, like one boat is faster than the other, which on top has a very aggressive skipper, impacting the team moral, which ultimately eads to the decision of keeping the boats together or not. You can imagine what type of discussions this initiates… plus it’s not a business specific situation but people can immediatly wrap their mind around it without a lot of context setting.
Besides the creative thinking, fast learning and problem solving I think another important criterium is the ability to handle conflict in direct communication, and again it’s pretty easy to define business independent simulation-type situations, where people need to talk their way through. It quickly shows how efficient, authentic and value-oriented people address, not necessarily solve the conflict.
my 2 cents, Georg
P.S. woukld love to sync again in person, I’m over here in the bay area once a month…
July 14th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
I already got some information from a reader with some pointers to this story:
http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/introbook2.1/x874.html
http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/barometer.asp
True or not, I still love the story! Thanks, Dave and Jeff!
July 14th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Another source of the story from another reader:
My father, who went to engineering school at Lehigh in the 50’s used to tell it like it actually happened in one of his classes. There were a few more “answers” including tying it to a string and measuring the period of oscillation. I’ve always believed it to be anecdotal and not an actual event.
Thanks, Michael!
July 14th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
I really like this idea too, from Brian:
Patty- I’ll pass on some advice from my dad (a professional manager of large teams from the 50′s, when Peter Drucker was THE management guru). This advice has been spot on, as in, every time I followed it, I made a good hire, and every time I ignore it, I regretted my decision).
Simply: once you’ve exhausted all the rational analysis of the candidate (or, the potential employer or partner), try to imagine an enjoyable meal with that person. If you can’t see it, do not choose to engage with him/her.
‘Turrns out my father was pretty smart!
July 16th, 2010 at 7:55 am
A good barometer that I use for assessing situational awareness in terviews is this. (I use it with prospective sales reps) Towards the end of the interview, I say “One of the things that I think is really important in sales is what I call a good ‘sense of smell’. What I mean by this is that ability to to size up a situation and figure out what people think about the product, idea or the person. Do you know what I mean?” Invariably, they say “yes”. Then I ask “OK, tell me, what do you think I think of you?” The accuracy and authenticity of their answer is a good gauge for how perceptive and aware they really are.